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The Police – Don’t Stand So Close To Me 7″ (U.S. & Italian Pressings)

The Police have released many singles over the years, with some getting both a 7″ and 12″ pressing. All of their singles have pressings from multiple countries. What is pictured below are the standard U.S pressing (white cover) and Italian pressing (blue/purple cover) of the 7″ single for “Don’t Stand So Close To Me.” There are no 12″ pressings of “Don’t Stand So Close To Me.”

The standard U.S. pressing comes in an exclusive picture sleeve (white cover pictured below) and has three variants, which is determined by a single letter etched in the matrix run out. These are ‘P’ ‘T’ and ‘S’ and they are representative of which pressing plant the record as pressed in. P is for Pitman, NJ , T is for Terre Haute, Indiana and S is for Santa Maria, Ca. The picture sleeve U.S. pressing has “A Sermon” on the b-side. On top of the standard U.S. pressings, there is also a promo U.S. pressing that has both the mono version of “Don’t Stand So Close To Me” on the b-side. It’s the only pressing to have the mono version of the single. The standard U.S. pressing has an exclusive b-side, “A Sermon.”

The Italian pressing has “Friends” on the b-side and comes in a picture sleeve that many of the other European pressings come in. This picture sleeve is blue/purple (depending on what each person sees the color as) with the band’s name in yellow lettering across the center of the sleeve.

Along with those two pressings featured here, there is a UK, German, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Dutch, Irish, general European, Canadian, Mexican, Brazilian, Peruvian, Japanese, South African, Philippines, Australian and New Zealand pressing.

The UK, Dutch and Japanese 7″ pressings have “Friends” on the b-side and come in a practically identical picture sleeve as the Italian pressing, but the writing is black instead of yellow. The Japanese pressing has Japanese writing on the cover however. The Spanish pressing comes in a picture sleeve that uses the cover art for the album Zenyatta Mondatta. There is also a promo Spanish pressing that comes in a stock sleeve. The German, French and General European pressings matches the Italian pressing both visually and musically. The Brazilian pressing comes in an exclusive picture sleeve, which has a photo of the band with a purple bar across the top with the band’s name printed in it. It also has an exclusive b-side, “Voices Inside My Head.”

The Mexican, Portuguese, Irish, Australian, New Zealand, Canadian, Philippines, Peruvian and South African pressings all come in stock sleeves. They all have “Friends” on the b-side.